


Darkness Lead Me Home (Step Nine Remix)

by dancinbutterfly



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Drug Addiction, M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, Rehabilitation, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 11:37:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4178349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkness Lead Me Home (Step Nine Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [words_unravel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/words_unravel/gifts).
  * Inspired by [light and air](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1357246) by [words_unravel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/words_unravel/pseuds/words_unravel). 



> This is for words_unravel. I took a small scene and kinda unpacked it with the some of Spencer rehab fic I've always wanted to write. 
> 
> Warning for non-graphic, canon, past drug use.

Rehab isn’t easy for Spencer. But then life over the past few years haven’t been easy for Spencer so why should rehab be any different? He still wants. All the time, every minute of every day he thinks about little white pills in little orange bottles that would make single beds in shared rooms hazy and unimportant, that would make phone calls to his mother or sisters or Jesus fuck Brendon that much easier. 

The Twelve Steps aren’t easy for Spencer either. Searching and fearless moral inventory his hairy white ass. Like listing his faults and failures is going to fix the shiny new chemical imbalances is in his brain. Yeah. That makes sense. 

The amends kind of work for him though. He’s got lists and lists of amends. His parents. His siblings. Pete. 

He spends a lot of time talking to Pete. Pete’s pretty amazing. Pete shows up at his rehab once a week and hangs out for all of visiting hours and talks about his own addiction and his bipolar and how this is just the beginning, not the ending and that he gets it. No, really, he gets it. And how he’s sorry too, that he didn’t take better care of them when they were teenagers, fragile and vulnerable. 

He calls Brent after two months in-patient. God, he spends who knows how long on the phone with Brent just crying and apologizing and being the good guy that he is, Brent let him go, let him spin his wheels and apologize for everything Panic did wrong that Spencer executed. He shouldn’t have had to do it alone but the fact of the matter is that he did and that’s that. 

He reaches out to Jon not long after that as his build up. Jon then Ryan because, man, everything falling apart hinges on South Africa and the decline. Jon is married and happy and doing photography and he still loves Spencer like a brother. “Do you want me to come out there?” he asks and because he’s Jon he means it. He always means it. Jon Walker will drop everything for a friend and Spencer is happy to know they’re still friends.

Brendon won’t even let him apologize. “You’re sick. If you had cancer you wouldn’t apologize would you? No. You wouldn’t. So shut the fuck up and get your phone out, loser. It’s your turn on Words with Friends. I’m kicking your ass soundly but winning’s no fun if you forfeit.” Brendon is good like that. The best. Brendon is his very best friend which is what makes calling Ryan so fucking hard. 

The best friend tier used to be filled by Ryan, wholly and completely. Then there was South Africa, screaming at each other in a hotel lobby then grappling with each other into an elevator and pushing each other into each of the four walls of the little metal box as their lips tore holes in their souls. 

They’d changed everything when they stumbled into Ryan’s hotel room, ripping each other’s shirts off over their heads. Spencer can still see Ryan’s lean body when he closed his eyes. He can taste the salt on his skin and the coffee in his mouth. He can feel the strands of soft hair between his fingers as Ryan put his mouth on his cock and sucked, sucked, licked and moaned around his cock. 

Fifteen years of friendship and they’d never done this before, never come close. Then all at once in Cape Town they’d gone screaming over the edge into something they weren’t ready for but wanted so desperately that was nothing like best friendship.

He’s seen Ryan a few times after the next morning, when things were awkward and awful and they couldn’t even meet each other’s eyes. It hasn’t been good. The last time before he checked himself into rehab was two years ago at one of The Like’s shows before Ryan and Z broke it off. Two years without the face he used to be unable to go two hours without seeing. So its no wonder that the phone to call Ryan feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. 

It’s a Thursday when he finally musters the balls to call Ryan. The NA meeting had been on overcoming fear and he figured screw it, the worst that could happen would be for Ryan to tell him to go fuck himself. He’s prepared for that, or at least that’s what he tells himself. 

Yeah, he’s pretty sure he’s prepared for that, he thinks as the third ring echoes in his ear. On the fourth ring, when Ryan picks up, he realizes that he is not, in fact, prepared.

“Hello?”

“Ryan, hey, it’s me.”

“Spencer?”

“Yeah. Hey. I, uh, hey.”

“Yeah. You said that already. Hey. How are you?”

Spencer laughs. “You know. In rehab. So better I guess. How are you?”

“Not bad. Busy.”

Spencer can feel himself deflate. “Oh, I can let you go then.”

“Not too busy to talk. I just meant in general. I’ve been writing a lot is all. For other people mostly.” Theres a smile in his voice. “But then technically I always wrote for someone else. So what’s up?”

“I was calling to apologize.”

“Yeah?” Ryan sounds curious. “For what?”

“God, Ryan, everything.” He pushes the heel of his hand into the space between his eyebrows. “Cape Town. The albums. The way I treated you. All of it.”

There’s a long silence then Ryan asks “Would it be okay if I came and visited you?”

“What?”

“If I came to see you, would that be okay? I think we need to do this face to face.”

“I- you don’t have to that,” Spencer protests. 

“No,” Ryan agrees. “But I want to.”

“Yeah, okay. That’d be, uh, that’d be nice.”

“I can be there in two days. Is that okay?”

“Yeah that’s fine.”

Two days later, as promised, Ryan is there right at the start of visiting hours. “Hey,” Spencer says but Ryan just stares at him. Spencer attempts a smile and to his immense surprise, Ryan smiles back. It practically glows in the drab visiting room. For the first time in two years, Spencer feels like he can get home.


End file.
